Every organization has membership challenges. To me, the question is really what value a technical organization can bring when there is an absolute explosion of technical information available for free online.

We are unlikely to tell anybody something they can't find out online. What LOPSA must do is distill our members' experiences into something more useful. By making speakers available to local chapters, a personalized Q&A can help provide a source of curated information, more directly applicable to members' situations.

Andree Jacobson - I think getting the exposure is the hardest part. I agree with Andy, if there is a way we can leverage the member experiences, maybe as case studies, etc. - that would be useful. Another issue is that when reaching out to students, in a non vocational academic program, they might be less inclined to understand how sysadmin experience can actually help them.

I think it is important to staying relevant in a changing tech landscape. I think that it is not always clear to people the different paths, specialties, and directions that an understanding of systems and a sysadmin background can provide. There are a lot of titles out there such as Systems Engineer, DevOps Engineer, Infrastructure Engineers… the list goes on and on, and a lot of students and people with an interest in tech start off

with thinking they're options are only software developers or corporate IT and maybe desktop support. I see LOPSA being a great organization for those with systems knowledge or a desire for systems knowledge no matter their job title. I would love to see that emphasized more clearly in the future.